Mathwork's HMI Dashboards

Background

The mandate for the Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) Dashboard squad at MathWorks is to give users a tool to create photorealistic dashboards within their models, enhancing visual clarity and functionality of the model.

Customer Pain

Users struggled with the lack of an integrated solution for inserting, styling, and refactoring dashboard components directly in their modeling environment. They needed an intuitive way to visualize and manage data streams.

Proposal

The proposed solution integrates a visual editor into the Simulink IDE, allowing users to insert components from a library, customize their appearance, and export designs for standalone displays or mobile devices. This tool supports workflows by enabling quick data stream activation and visualization, fostering seamless integration into user tasks.

Prototype

The visual editor is integrated into the Simulink IDE.  The main design challenge was to strike a balance between modeling workflows and adapting the user’s mental model & experience to a set of visual design tasks & goals.

Monitor & Improve

Based on feedback from feedback I worked on concepts that further integrate the dashboard widgets into the users workflow.  The proposal enabled users to quickly turn on data streams of interest in the form of ‘Port Value Displays’ and then transform that information into a sparkline or use the stream in a separate dashboard panel.